The Liberals, meanwhile, held on to Ottawa-Vanier, beating back a challenge from
colourful and controversial former ombudsman André Marin, who ran for the Tories. With most
polls reporting, civil-liberties lawyer Nathalie Des Rosiers held a lead of 49 per cent to 30 per cent
for Mr. Marin and 15 per cent for the NDP’s Claude
Bisson.

The result allowed Premier Kathleen Wynne to
breathe a sigh of relief: A loss in the Liberals’ Ottawa bastion would have
further stoked fears in the party over her electability amid cratering poll
numbers and voter anger with electricity prices, the privatization of Hydro One
and a string of ethics scandals.

The visibly ecstatic Premier took the stage at Ms. Des Rosiers’s victory party, at a Knights of Columbus
branch in Vanier,
around 10:20 p.m.

“We have Nathalie
Des Rosiers
coming to Queen’s Park to fight for all the things she’s been fighting for her
whole career,” Ms. Wynne said to roars of approval from the hall,
which included nearly the entire Liberal caucus and a small army of Queen’s Park
staffers. “Equality for women, child care, a fair and inclusive society.”

In a subsequent scrum, Ms. Wynne laughed when asked if the victory had saved
her premiership.

“I made a commitment in 2013 to implement a plan. We’re implementing that
plan,” she said.

Mr. Oosterhoff’s
victory in Niagara, meanwhile, is a mixed blessing for PC Leader Patrick Brown,
who will now have to contend with his newest MPP’s extreme views in caucus.

“Tonight, we have made history,” said Mr. Brown. “We have elected the
youngest serving MPP in Ontario history, and we couldn’t be more proud.”

“The Liberals resorted to a smear campaign against Sam. And Sam focused on
Hydro, Sam focused on jobs, Sam focused on getting Ontario back on its
feet.”

In his victory speech, Mr. Oosterhoff
highlighted the economy and steered clear of the social issues that divide him
from his party’s new direction.

“Today we sent a very strong message to Premier Wynne,” he said. “People have had enough of
soaring Hydro rates.”

In a scrum with reporters, however, Mr. Oosterhoff declined to say whether he believes
homosexuality is a sin, as he has suggested in the past. Hugging his parents, he
said, “I believe we need to treat everybody with dignity and respect.”

Mr. Oosterhoff
had rallied conservatives who felt betrayed by Mr. Brown’s tack to the left on
social issues. “Personally, I think he over-corrected a bit in that direction,”
said Jake Sinke, chair
of the socially conservative lobby group Canada Family Action Niagara, in the
hotel ballroom where Mr. Oosterhoff’s
victory party was being held. “I think there is quite a number that thinks he
over-corrected a bit.”

Mr. Oosterhoff
became the Tory candidate by upsetting former MP Rick Dykstra, the PC party president, in a nomination
battle. He got the support of evangelical Christians by opposing the Liberals’
sexual-education curriculum and a bill that would make it easier for same-sex
couples to have children.

PC social conservatives were angered by Mr. Brown’s repeated flip-flops on
sex-ed and same-sex marriage. Mr. Brown changed his position on sex-ed at least
three times before finally pledging support for the new curriculum this
fall.

Mr. Oosterhoff’s
extremism will be hard to square with Mr. Brown’s attempt to rebrand the Tories as a “modern,” centrist
party.

At an all-candidates’ debate earlier this month, Mr. Oosterhoff declared himself “100-per-cent
pro-life.”

And in a Facebook
post from last year, Mr. Oosterhoff
linked to a homophobic blog post on www.desiringgod.org. He quoted a section of
the post on his page, describing homosexuality as a “sin” and decrying that it
is “seen as a good thing, as a new hallmark of progress.”

The posting was not visible on Mr. Oosterhoff’s Facebook page Thursday, but a screen grab of it
was circulated online by the Broadbent
Institute, a left-wing think tank.

Mr. Oosterhoff’s
victory breaks the age record set by Reid Scott, who was elected an MPP for the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in 1948 at age 21.

Niagara West-Glanbrook, a largely rural riding in
Ontario’s wine country, has been in Tory hands since its creation in 2007. It
became vacant when former leader Tim Hudak quit
the legislature earlier this year.

In Ottawa-Vanier, meanwhile, the Tories mounted an
unusually vigorous campaign for a seat they have not won in fifty years.

The by-election was something of a grudge match for Mr. Marin.

In his decade as ombudsman, he earned the Liberals’ ire with his hard-hitting
investigations into everything from Hydro One billing problems to mass arrests
at the 2010 G20 protests.

His shoot-from-the-lip communications style was a magnet for the media that
sometimes overshadowed his work. As his term wound down last year, for instance,
he exhorted his followers to flame the Liberals on Twitter so they would give
him another five years on the job.

Ms. Wynne’s
cabinet then used an executive order to get him out of office, and subsequently
got the other parties in the legislature to agree to give the job to the much
milder Paul Dubé.

Even some fellow Tories tired of Mr. Marin’s antics, including his penchant for
frequently tweeting photos of himself at the gym and dubbing his followers
#MarinArmy.
When the Liberals tried to compare Mr. Marin with U.S. president-elect Donald
Trump during the by-election, PC strategist Mark Towhey joked on Twitter: “Aside from unbridled
narcissism, what could they possibly share? I’ve never seen a bare-chested selfie of Donald Trump kissing his dogs.”

Despite his outsize personality, Mr. Marin is a political moderate who fits
with Mr. Brown’s attempted facelift for the party, and it is likely he will
stick around.

Ms. Des Rosiers, for her part, is best known for her
previous work with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, where she famously
exposed ex-premier Dalton McGuinty’s
secret move to suspend protesters’ rights ahead of the G20 summit.

The Ottawa riding, which encompasses working-class Vanier, tony Rockcliffe Park and the Byward, became vacant with the resignation of
former attorney-general Madeleine Meilleur
ahead of a cabinet shuffle this summer.

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